But if I buy this now I can’t upgrade it to a Mqa version via a Firmware upgrade right? When will the Mqa version be available?
Probably in a few months. And yeah, they say you can’t upgrade or modify the current version to make it MQA compatible… with firmware or otherwise. They make that pretty clear in their marketing.
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Thanks then ill wait for the MQA version and for more reviews.
I got the D90 in today. Will post sound impressions after I’ve had proper time to test it. (Believe there are differences… but I need to do proper A/Bing which I am not setup to do yet)
Actually quite a bit smaller than the D70. Menus and volume control are noticeably snappier on the D90… as they tended to be a bit slow on the D70.
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Kinda curious to see if there is any noticeable difference between the D1 and D90 (some may say it’s 90x the difference).
I’ll probably get a D90 eventually and compare it to the D1 and see if the upgrade is worth it sound wise since I don’t really use Bluetooth (albeit a nifty feature) and MQA is kinda useless to me seeing how I don’t use streaming and I have all my music on Hard Drives/CDs/Vinyl so if I do like the D90 comparatively and the MQA version comes out with just MQA support with no technical improvements I probably won’t lose sleep over it.
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Wow that is a pretty noticeable size difference, I didn’t expect it to be that small either for the performance (Insert Zeos Voice Here).
Srsly though, curious to see the sound differences, they both test well though so idk how much of a difference there will be audibly, especially from the same manufacturer, and one that tends to put out some really clean dacs in general.
So I know I said I’d wait a couple days… but I have some quick early impressions after doing some A/Bing.
Both DACs being fed the same digitial signal with an active splitter.
Both DACs hooked up to the RNHP… one XLR, the other RCA… and I swapped them after a bit. So I could literally just hit A or B input on the front of the headphone amp to hear each DAC back to back.
Went through a number of Amazon music HD and my own FLAC library and the audible differences are honestly pretty negligible, if any. There is a very slight volume shift going from the XLR to RCA inputs… (RCA gets a tiny smidge louder) on the RNHP Amp… but it’s pretty close volume wise on this amp.
If there is any difference I am hearing… it might be a tiny bit smoother sounding in the top end on the D90… but it’s small enough could be placebo. I don’t have a way to properly blind-test myself.
This is only 20 minutes or so of testing. I will spend more time with it later this week and try to eliminate as many variables and ‘bottlenecks’ as possible… as I feel it would pretty much be necessary to find any audible differences in this case… But I feel like I can pretty safely say for any actual PRACTICAL purpose they are pretty much identical.
The real tangible upgrades are the smaller box, blutooth, The screen is noticeably nicer (A lot sharper and brighter text… but still has brightness controls). And the menus… switching inputs… volume control… etc are a lot snappier on the D90
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What are the dimensions,? The only specs.I found showed fbem to be the same size- lol.
about 8.5" wide and a bit over 6’ deep. Under 2" high
By comparison D70 is
9.75" wide and about 7.5" deep. Same height
Yeah I remember when I did that with the D1 vs the DX7s and I remember a similar impression where the differences were negligible but the top end on the D1 was the slightest bit smoother. I used the Undertale OST and the Lisa the Painful OST cuz those used very basic pitched tones for their stuff so you can hear some harshness on certain tones, particularly on the Undertale OST. Honestly though, you probably won’t notice diddly trebble wise if you listen to anything other than Fully Digital Music or very clean 16-Bit Game Soundtracks/Songs with very Specific Tones. I mean, I still might buy the D90 since I can probably sell the D1 for 500-600 and just put 200 of my own money in. Honestly though, the Size factor has me a bit hooked, it being so compact that is.
Oh Also, I used a THX 789 For testing, btw.
Yeah… exactly how I feel about the differences. Just overall seems to sound a bit smoother, doing the instant A/Bing, but it’s extremely negligible. The size-factor as well as the really snappy operation has me a bit sold… but I do wonder if maybe the DX7 Pro might be a bit nicer for desktop use, especially if it’s roughly the same size and it has a nice volume knob.
It has a slightly lower performance, which I mean, the Pro is better than the D70 from ASR measurements, so if the D70 and D90 are negligible then then Pro and D90 might as well be identical. Honestly at that point, maybe save the money from the D90 and get the Pro since honestly the Round Potentiometer style is a bit more to my taste as well than the buttons. I think they both come with remotes tho so take it as you will. Either one will serve its purpose well with their own set of features (since at this point they barely have any audible faults).
Might actually be more audible differences between the DX7 than the D70… as it’s using the ESS chip and not the AK chip… it has a different THD curve… etc… where as the D70 and D90 are nearly identical in that respect. Analog output stage seems slightly different too. Same opamps as D70/90 by default… but you can ‘roll’ them on the Pro.
I plan on ordering the Denafrips Ares II later in January… takes a couple months to ship for lead time… but after seeing this ‘sound demo’ comparing it to the Topping D50 I am interested. I like the differences I am hearing with it and really want to hear one for myself.
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Oh yeah true, forgot their higher end DACs are starting to use the new AK chips, and I guess the Pro would have the ESS Hump as well due to their chips having some issues, honestly though I have no idea what differences that would provide though, would the Pro with the ESS be warmer or something due to the hump or what?
Also do the Op Amps affect the DAC/ Back Output portion or just the Headphone Output Portion? Idk, I’d Probably want to go with the more linear and transparent sounding of the two.
I mean I’m the type of guy who prefers my amps to do the changes to signature (building my personal tube amp in a few days) not so much the DAC so in your opinion (idk how many DACs you’ve listened to but it’s always good to ask either way), If I wanted Linear and Transparent, would the ESS Topping Pro or the AK D90 be better?
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You can swap the opamps for both the Output stage and headphone out seperately. I’ve done opamp swapping in the past and it definitely makes audible changes for better or worse. THD on the Pro does creep into audible range (If you listen at higher volumes) in the higher frequencies… at least according to ASRs measurments. The audible differences are probably negligible in practice, though.
The headphone output on the DX7 pro isn’t the best measuring… but I think it could potentially be a nice secondary amp to play with if you have multiple headphones. Higher output impedance isn’t “ideal”… but it can have a positive effect with some headphones.
If you’re a bit OCD about it, then the D90 is probably the best option if you just want the best measuring thing… I’d probably only switch over fomr the D1 if you really want the smaller size etc.
The D1 has those nice sound coloring options which I’ve played with on the SU8 which I liked.
I mean DAC isn’t my number 1 priority atm since the D1 is relatively clean sounding and performs well, I sometimes play around with the sound coloring and they do sound great and give a bit of variety, albeit a bit of a guilty pleasure on my part seeing how I wanted something linear, but atm I’m kinda just deciding on a good SS amp to contrast my Tube Amp, either the Archel Pro 2.5 or (and a previous discussion piqued my interest) being the SMSL SP200.
My Headphones so far are High Impedance (Beyer T1 MKII & HD600) with the Argons that I’m getting being 50 Ohm. the Archel is Cheaper and has less Power but has a High Gain Setting and Balanced Inputs that help internally as well as general Power Output and super duper low distortion, albeit might clip with lower impedance cans (Based on ASR Archel Pro 2). I don’t think it’d do this at 50 Ohm but the Argons having low sensitivity might not get the best sound (Then Again the 2.5 is quite a bit more powerful so that issue may not be present, especially since even at high gain it’s really low noise/distortion).
If I do get the SP200, at least the DAC will match eh?
I’m using the RNHP, I’d definitely consider. Depends what headphones you are using, but it’s a slight step above the SP200, IMO.
If you have a bunch of hard to drive stuff, then the THX amps are probably better.
So if you compared the rnhp to the thx on difference with a scale of 1-10 with 1 being no difference and 10 being world’s of difference, how would you rate the upgrade from thx to rnhp and the d70 to d90?
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